Lecithin and Weight Loss

Last Modified and Updated at January 15, 2020

The link between lecithin and weight loss seems to be irrefutable if you believe the claims of many supplement manufacturers, but does it really work? Lecithin is one of the most popular ingredients in weight loss supplements. So we thought we’d check out the veracity of the evidence used to substantiate its benefits. Our review on Lecithin as a weight loss ingredient will find out how this work, specially in burning unnecessary fat on your body.

We’ve got a friend who adds a spoonful to her porridge, cereal, smoothies… Pretty much everything, really!

Lecithin and Weight Loss – How Does it Work..?

Lecithin is a lipid made up of choline and inositol. It’s one of the main components of cell membranes and has a number of functions. It’s most important function is to control the flow of nutrients into and out of the cell.

Lecithin occurs in foods such as soya beans, yeast, peanuts, fish and egg yolks as well as foods like chocolate and margarine, where it’s added as an emulsifying agent.

You can also buy lecithin as a powder, as tablets or in weight loss shake mixes that have lecithin as a main ingredient.

Now there is some evidence that lecithin in the bloodstream can keep fat solvent, preventing it from clumping together and sticking to artery walls. It can also prevent causing clots and atherosclerosis (thickening of the artery walls).

However, there’s a quantum leap between fat as an emulsifying agent in the bloodstream and lecithin as some sort of fat burner, mobilizing and metabolizing subcutaneous fat – the fat between your muscles and skin.

Search as hard as you like, there’s no credible or any scientific evidence that demonstrates a link between lecithin and weight loss or fat metabolism.

Whilst there’s no evidence to take lecithin for weight loss purposes, additional lecithin as a dietary supplement may be beneficial. Specially for people taking niacin or nicotinic acid to treat high blood cholesterol levels.

Lecithin and Weight Loss – The Bottom Line…

There are certainly some health benefits anyone can have from a regular consumption of lecithin rich foods. So, we recommend it as a part of a healthy balanced diet.

However, taking lecithin supplements to lose weight is highly likely to be an expensive waste of time.

The links between lecithin and weight loss are simply not based on any robust scientific evidence. So, you can make your decision now to avoid it.

The only link between lecithin and weight loss is that we could find is that the third syllable of lecithin is ‘thin’!